ACTA leak shows US Trade Rep lied about "3-strikes"

Michael Geist sez, "Your earlier post did a great job of highlighting the latest ACTA [ed: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret and unprecedented global copyright treaty] leak. I've just posted on the implications for the three key issues: notice-and-takedown, DMCA anti-circumvention, and three strikes.

"The three strikes is key - the draft chapter finally puts to rest the question of whether ACTA in its current form would establish a 'three strikes and you're' out model [ed: if someone in your house is accused of three acts of copyright infringement, your whole house loses internet access]. The USTR has recently emphatically stated that it does not establish a mandatory three strikes system. The draft reveals that this is correct, but the crucial word is mandatory. The draft U.S. chapter does require intermediaries to play a more aggressive role in policing their networks and the specific model cited is the three-strikes approach. In other words, the treaty may not specifically require three-strikes, but it clearly encourages it as the model to qualify as a safe harbour from liability.

"This leaks shows how deceptive the USTR has been on this issue - on the one hand seeking to assure the public that there is no three-strikes and on the other specifically citing three strikes as its proposed policy model. Given the past U.S. history with anti-circumvention - which started with general language and now graduates to very specific requirements - there is little doubt that the same dynamic is at play with respect to three strikes."

2 Responses to “ACTA leak shows US Trade Rep lied about "3-strikes"”

This sounds more like blackmail than an actual law. “Play by our rules or we will sue you into oblivion when one of your users breaks our rules.” I know US politicians are big fans of obsfucating the crucial details of their laws so their riders and petty addendums can get passed as well; but this is some bullshit.

I hope we, as the public, get an option to vote on this crap in every country involved in the ACTA so this isn’t foisted upon an unwilling public.

So after all the media companies get this fantasy world, what will happen when DVD sales and CD sales still decline? It can’t be the pirates because they have been wiped from the net, so would could be the cause?